In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, I, the inventor, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. I also grow a lesser number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits, usually to capture recessive traits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of nectarine tree, which has been denominated varietally as ‘Pearl Time’.
The present variety was hybridized by me during the 2000 blooming season as a first generation cross using ‘Snow Princess’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 12,570) peach as the selected seed parent and ‘Spring Bright’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 7,507) nectarine as the selected pollen parent. The fruit of this cross was gathered that summer of 2000, and the seeds were removed from the fruit, germinated, stratified, and grown as seedlings on their own root in my greenhouse. Upon reaching dormancy that winter, the seedlings were transplanted as a group to a cultivated area of my experimental orchard located near Le Grand, Calif., in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). During the fruit evaluation season of 2004 I selected the present variety as a single tree from the group of seedlings described above. After its initial selection in 2004, the present variety was carefully observed and further evaluated during each subsequent fruiting season. As part of this testing process, I asexually reproduced the present nectarine variety by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Nemaguard’ (unpatented) rootstock upon which the present variety was compatible and true to type.
The present variety is similar to its seed parent, ‘Snow Princess’ peach by producing fruit that is white in flesh color, freestone in type, sub-acidic and sweet in flavor, and firm in texture, but is quite distinguished therefrom by producing fruit that is nectarine instead of peach and by maturing about forty days earlier.
The present variety is similar to its pollen parent, ‘Spring Bright’ nectarine by requiring about 500 hours of dormant chilling, by blooming in the early to mid season, and by producing fruit that is full red in skin color, firm in texture, globose in shape, and medium in size, but is quite distinguished therefrom by producing nectarines that are white instead of yellow in flesh color, freestone instead of clingstone in type, sub-acidic instead of acidic in flavor, and that mature about six days earlier.
The present variety is most similar to ‘Spring Pearl’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 16,034) nectarine by producing fruit that is white in flesh color, almost full red in skin color, firm in texture, sub-acidic in flavor, and that matures in mid to late June, but is distinguished therefrom by requiring less chilling hours, by blooming earlier, by having globose instead of reniform leaf glands, and by producing fruit that is freestone instead of clingstone in type, that is sweeter in flavor, and that matures about five days earlier.